Famously, once the novel coronavirus was sequenced, Moderna had their mRNA sequence ready just a few days later. This was well-covered in the press. All the ti

Famously, once the novel coronavirus was sequenced, Moderna had their mRNA sequence ready just a few days later. This was well-covered in the press. All the time from then to general availability of their vaccine was spent on testing and scaling. This is not exactly what you asked. But if the question is whether we have a speed advantage on vaccines because of greater understanding of viruses now, the answer is yes. It’s one reason the COVID-19 vaccine was the fastest in history. Should it become necessary to separately vaccinate against coronavirus variants, the same advantage would confer. And vaccine makers have said they are monitoring variants and ready to go, if necessary. The question is, will it be necessary? And how much testing will variant vaccines need to undergo?